A train operator has been accused of avoiding paying compensation to
passengers by cancelling hundreds of trains in the cold weather.

Thousands of commuters were denied payouts by Southeastern after the firm passed punctuality targets by a wafer-thin margin.

Greg Barker, a climate change minister and Tory MP for Bexhill and Battle, has demanded an independent inspection of the figures, saying they “didn’t smell right”.

This is because the statistics did not take into account the services which were cancelled when the company operated a succession of emergency timetables during the recent bad weather.

The train firm - which operates some of the country’s busiest commuter routes from Kent, East Sussex and outer London - is already under scrutiny after announcing the biggest fare rises in the country.

It now faces further anger from passengers who have expressed surprise at missing out on compensation.

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The company, which carries more than 120,000 passengers a day into central London, would have been forced to cut five per cent off season tickets if fewer than 82 per cent of trains ran on time over the last 12 months.

But Southeastern calculated that 82.04 per cent of services met the punctuality target over that period.

This was despite only around five per cent of Southeastern’s trains arriving at their destination on time during the worst of the weather. The rest were either late, cancelled or removed from the timetable completely.

At one point earlier this month scores of passengers, travelling from London to Hastings, were forced to spend the night on a train after it broke down.

“My constituents will be appalled that Southeastern appears to have got off the hook when their experience of their service over the last month has been nothing other than disastrous,” Mr Barker said.

“We will want to look carefully at these figures because it just doesn’t smell right.”

His calls for an independent investigation were endorsed by Ashwin Kumar, rail director of the watchdog group, Passenger Focus.

“Given that Southeastern has so narrowly avoided paying compensation to season ticket holders, it is right that an independent party looks at the figures to make sure there are no errors.”

The level of service on Southeastern is particularly sensitive because its commuters face a 7.8 per cent average increase in the cost of season tickets, with some passengers being hit with rises of just below 13 per cent.

It is also the first company in the South East to charge standard class passengers more than £5,000 a year to get to work.

Commuters are entitled to compensation under the Passenger Charter scheme, which is triggered by the company’s performance in the 12 months running up to when a season ticket is renewed.

With January being one of the busiest months for renewals, performance in the early winter is particularly sensitive and poor punctuality would trigger renewal rebates.

While Southeastern has insisted that its latest figures meant that it scraped over the target, it did not stop the company receiving a substantial payment from Network Rail earlier this month for the disruption to its services.

At least one other company, Scotrail, has agreed to compensate its passengers for the poor service they received, with the company announcing it will pay out £500,000 in refunds and rebates.

MPs on all sides urged Southeastern to follow suit.

Greg Clark, Conservative MP for Tunbridge Wells and a local government minister said: “These figures should be examined exceedingly closely and forensically to make sure that they are accurate and have not been manipulated in any way.”

Tom Harris, a rail minister in the Labour Government added: “It seems to me to be totally unfair that passengers who are already having a very bad service under the emergency timetable should be told that they are not entitled to any compensation at all.”

A Southeastern spokeswoman denied that it had cancelled trains for commercial reasons.

She said: “Southeastern operates a contingency timetable only when instructed to by Network Rail.

Punctuality and performance statistics are calculated using the standard industry methods and the process is audited annually independently.”